living, it's worthwhile.
As I approached, the frowns disappeared and the younger, more vulnerable of the women smiled tentatively at me. I suppressed the urge to backhand her into the wall (though the image of the rough concrete tearing a gash in her scalp and the blood mixing with her lustrous auburn hair flashed into my mind and took a long time to fade). Even if I can't see my reflection any longer, I know what I look like. I'm nothing special, never was. I never made women melt, never was particularly desirable. My love life was unenviable at best — oh, I had relationships, but they were never easy, never solid — and I'm no different now than I was then. Except, of course, that I'm a vampire — and vampires draw women like dog shit draws flies. And what a piece of self-knowledge that is — I'm sexually irresistible to women because I've been damned to hell. It's not even like they want me because I'm rich or famous. That I could deal with — at least that might be something I earned. But this — these deeply felt, seductive smiles on the faces of women who would have had nothing to do with me in life — it isn't me they're smiling at at all, it's the curse. It's insulting to me, degrading to them and it never, never ends.
I reached my building, but it no longer seemed to be a construction of stone, wood and masonry, glass and mortar. Instead, it was a living thing, pulsing with pockets of life, each individual blood-signature intimately familiar to me, the smell and rhythm of them, nightly visitors, old temptations. The crimson glow behind that window was Mrs. Wintour, behind that one Anna Berkowitz and her niece Brenda. My inflamed senses faultlessly registered who was home and who was out, longtime tenant or relative newcomer. They also told me I had a visitor.
She waited by my door, clutching her coat around her in the chilly hallway. Her pulse was sluggish, but she saw me and it jolted to life, her eyes lighting up and her skin taking on a rosier tone.
The ache in my teeth was like a knife. 'Kate, you should be at home. You shouldn't be here. You should be with Tim, asleep.'
'I couldn't stay away.' She looked away, then back, defiance in her eyes. She set her lips in a determined line and I knew what was coming. She'd done it before.
'Kate, no — ' But she opened the coat. She was naked underneath, as I knew she would be. Her body gleamed in the dim light, but it wasn't just her body I saw. I could see the blood racing up and down under her skin and my hands ached to trace it. It collected, taunting me, in the hollows of her pelvis, in her nipples, her lips. Heat poured from her and I knew I couldn't resist. My good intentions vanished, my need exploding in a crimson fog behind my eyes.
She must have seen it, because as I took a half-step forward, she gave a little cry and leapt, her arms wrapping around my neck, her body flattening against mine. I buried my face in her throat, the powerful flow of her jugular enfolding me, begging for the release of my teeth. I held back, instead tasting her with lips and tongue, the salt tang of her sweat and the musk of her perfume filling my senses, masking momentarily the siren call of her blood.
She bit my ear and pulled back. 'Well,' she said throatily, looking into my eyes, 'aren't you going to invite me in?'
Once inside, she shucked the coat and headed for the bedroom. I thought of the cold, bitter taste of the plasma in the refrigerator, of my sturdy, lockable closet, lined with furs and leathers (I didn't have a coffin, was never interred; it'd be no more than a box to me), of
'How can you, Kate? How can you demean yourself? You're educated, an adult — a lawyer! You have a life, a husband who loves you, kids, for God's sake!' The holy name ripped through my larynx like broken glass, but I needed the pain, needed anything to help me break free. 'If self-respect won't stop you, then what about them?'
'Oh, fuck 'em,' she answered, a savage glint in her eye. 'I don't care about anything but you. And you want me too — you know it!'
It was true. I'd met her in college, when she was already going with Tim. I was attracted to her, and she was flattered but didn't feel anything for me — not when I was alive. We'd become friends, the three of us, and I'd settled for that. My mistake was thinking I could still hang around after my death — that my vampirism wouldn't matter. By the time I realized what I was doing to her, to them, it was too late. Horrified, I cut off all contact, but it didn't do any good. We'd been too close for too long, and now, when my need got too strong, she felt it as much as I did. I moved three times before I realized she wasn't finding me through an address book. She was following my need.
One of the things I do to control the need, to beat it down and shut it away, is to tell myself as brutally as possible that these women don't want me, wouldn't be interested for a second if I was alive — and that, if not for the curse, I wouldn't want them either. I avoided old lovers, long-ago crushes, anyone I felt anything for before, and for the most part it worked. But not with her. She was a real person to me, someone I not only wanted but also maybe even loved.
She pulled me down on the bed. I didn't resist. Her lips found mine and her tongue slipped into my mouth. There was a trace of blood, left over from a bitten tongue or lip, and the taste was sweet, overpowering. I caressed her back, her hips, her breasts. Her skin tingled beneath my hands as I traced veins, arteries, the delicate fuzz of capillaries tiny fractions of an inch away from my fingertips. I could feel a power building up within me and shuddered.
Her hands fumbled with the buttons of my shirt, pulling it open, over my shoulders. She began to kiss my chest and I twisted around on the bed so I could reach her as well, kissing the underside of her breast and working my way downward, scraping the skin of her abdomen delicately with my teeth, scratching but not breaking it, still holding back. I felt her hands and lips work lower as well, pausing at my nipples and then my navel. Then her fingers were groping at my belt as my lips nibbled at her inner thigh.
I felt light-headed and weak. She was becoming transparent to me, her skin dissolving, her bones no more than a ghostly image. All I saw was the delicate tracery of her circulatory system, branching and twining like some exotic flora, the oxygen-rich blood slamming through the fragile vessels of her body with every heartbeat. Her jugular was too far away, but it didn't matter. Her femoral artery would do — less than an inch away from my teeth, swollen with pleasure and life and release. My lips parted.
She slid my zipper down and reached for me, finding me, as always, limp, flaccid, unresponsive. She stiffened, her heat suddenly tainted with confusion.
She pulled away to look at me, and the uncertainty in her face triggered a surge of rage in me, the power I'd felt earlier turned dark and ugly.
'What's wrong?' she asked. 'Don't I —»
I lashed out, grabbed her by the throat, and stood, lifting her. Her body dangled weightless from my hand, and her pulse throbbed under my thumb, throbbed like my teeth, my throat. 'Oh yes — yes you do.' She twitched, trying to free herself, her legs kicking out gracefully. Her hands came up to pull at mine. It felt like the flutter of a bird's wing.
I put her against the wall. I thought I was gentle, but the wall shuddered when she hit, and she winced in pain. 'Be still. Do you know? Do you know what it is I want?' She looked back at me, her head cocked to the side, her eyes meeting mine aslant. There was worry in her eyes, but it was clouded with desire. I had to find a way to get through it — I had to make her see my ugliness, my depravity. 'I want to rip your throat out! To tear your flesh with my teeth and nails and drink your blood! To have it smeared on me like paint, to sink my hands into it, to bathe in it until it grows cold!' She licked her lips. 'I want to kill you! That's what does it for me. That's the
She nodded, slowly. But there was no resistance in her. The worry slipped away. Deliberately, carefully, she lifted her chin, exposing her throat to me as best she could.
I would do it. This time, finally, I would.
'No!' I shouted the word, flinging her to the bed. I am not an animal. I would not give in.
I dropped to my knees, leaning on the edge of the bed and running my fingers along the edge of her jaw. So warm. There would be a bruise on her neck soon. I could see crushed capillaries oozing below the surface of her skin. 'I don't like this, Kate. The fear, the pain. I'll do something bad, I know it. I've been strong, but I can't be strong forever. Somebody has to do something — don't you see?'
I cupped her face in my hands, stretching out toward her, begging for understanding. 'I'm vulnerable during the day. I can be stopped. I can be killed. It would be easy. No risk, no danger.
